{"id":376272,"date":"2025-11-13T16:15:40","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T16:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/376272\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T16:15:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T16:15:40","slug":"masa-loses-a-michelin-star-ahead-of-the-guides-official-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/376272\/","title":{"rendered":"Masa Loses a Michelin Star Ahead of the Guide\u2019s Official Release"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 15 years at the summit of fine dining in New York, Masa<\/a> is no longer<\/a> a three-Michelin-star restaurant. Michelin confirmed the downgrade ahead of next week\u2019s guide release \u2014 a rare move that rattled the city\u2019s Michelin watchers.<\/p>\n

Chef Masayoshi Takayama opened Masa in 2004 in the Time Warner Center (now Deutsche Bank Center). In 2007, Masa earned two Michelin stars, one fewer than it deserved, according to<\/a> then-New York Times critic Frank Bruni. It earned its third star in 2008<\/a> as the first Japanese restaurant in the U.S. to do so. By 2015, it was the most expensive restaurant<\/a> in the country, today running $1,000-plus per person<\/a> for the counter omakase menu.<\/p>\n

Michelin confirmed the downgrade in a statement <\/a>released on Wednesday, November 12, noting that Masa, along with Chicago\u2019s Alinea<\/a> from Grant Achatz and Virginia\u2019s Inn at Little Washington<\/a> from Patrick O\u2019Connell, would each lose a star ahead of the Michelin Guide\u2019s regional ceremony on Tuesday, November 18, in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\u201dThe Michelin Guide maintains its role of providing fair and qualitative recommendations to consumers, with its team of expert Inspectors, following its global methodology,\u201c reads the statement. \u201dIt fully acknowledges the impact of its decisions on the establishments it honors.\u201c<\/p>\n

Following the announcement, the restaurant released a statement on behalf of Takayama. \u201cFor 15 years, we\u2019ve been honored to stand among extraordinary company, and I\u2019m so grateful to our guests for their enduring trust, loyalty, and friendship,\u201d he says. \u201cI am deeply proud of the hard work our team puts in day-in and day-out, and as always, we will continue to strive for excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michelin\u2019s unusual move follows last week\u2019s drama<\/a> when the winners were leaked ahead of the Michelin Guide South ceremony. In years past, the organization typically revealed its full list of additions, deletions, and promotions at the ceremony. In breaking with tradition, a spokesperson said<\/a> the chefs and their teams \u201chave been informed ahead of the ceremony,\u201d emphasizing that \u201cthe Guide\u2019s recommendations are far from fixed and are reassessed each year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guide has not given a specific reason for the downgrades. It grades restaurants<\/a> by \u201cquality of the ingredients used, mastery of flavor and cooking techniques, the personality of the chef in his cuisine, value for money, and consistency between visits.\u201d The demotion follows New York food media\u2019s pointed criticism for the past few years. Masa was ranked 69 out of 100, in a rating of \u201cnot terrible\u201d<\/a> by New York magazine, with the notation that \u201cMasa Takayama\u2019s original omakase temple is not what it once was, and the prices are now officially absurd.\u201d Masa did not make the New York Times \u201c100 Best Restaurants\u201d in 2025<\/a> or 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The number of three-star restaurants in New York thus drops from five to four, at least for now \u2014 unless a new restaurant rises to the three-star coveted status at next week\u2019s ceremony in Philadelphia\u2019s Kimmel Center. The event bundles award announcements for New York, Chicago, D.C., and for the first time, Philadelphia, and Boston.<\/p>\n

In the latest edition of the Michelin Guide, the four remaining three-star venues are Eleven Madison Park<\/a>, Le Bernardin<\/a>, Per Se<\/a>, and Jungsik<\/a>, chef Jungsik Yim\u2019s<\/a> restaurant, which moved up from two to three stars last year, becoming the first Korean restaurant in the U.S. to earn that distinction. Since the remaining three-star restaurants have apparently not been notified, it\u2019s probably safe to say that they\u2019re going to keep their three-star status.<\/p>\n

The Masa news comes as omakase restaurants multiply across New York, often at a lower price than Masa. Whether the flood of restaurants reflects more competition for Masa or a broader recalibration of Michelin\u2019s fine-dining standards remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: This article was updated to include a statement from Masa at 10:27 a.m. on November 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 15 years at the summit of fine dining in New York, Masa is no longer a three-Michelin-star…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":376273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,16492,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-376272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-restaurant-news","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115543285719291029","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}